Online Alarm Clock

I sit in front of this computer way too much. I know what you're thinking. "Why don't you post more often then?!?" I know, I know... But my point is that I need to spend LESS time in front of this box. So I was going to start setting my kitchen timer for 15 minutes at a time to remind me to get up and do stuff. We have THREE kitchen timers. Two of them are really nifty...they have magnets so they'll stick to the fridge, and little stands in the back so that you can stand them up and watch the time, and all kinds of nifty features. Do you think either one of these were ON the fridge? Nope. Neither was the regular kitchen timer on the shelf, where it belongs. I know, nice, right? Ugh!

But I'm determined to set some kind of alarm. I hate using the timer on the stove (I don't know why), the one on my phone is annoying and my hearing isn't good enough to use the one in my bedroom. So, I decided to look online to see if I could find some kind of alarm. Viola! Here it is, an online alarm clock! It even has different ringers. I personally prefer the guitar. :-D

Productivity

These days, productivity is rare for me. I've had some fairly major back pain issues for the last few years. I refuse to take medication for it unless I absolutely need it because when my pain is dulled, I can't tell how bad it is, and I continue to put more and more strain on my back, which just makes it worse.

Also, I've had some minor depression issues all my life, and I've been in "that" mode for a few months (maybe the winter weather affected me more than I thought it did). So, it has been increasingly difficult to have those productive days.

I have often sat and wistfully dreamed of the days when I could clean my whole house in one day...now I can't mop the floors. Or the days when I could make it to the top of Pilot Butte...I couldn't even make it from the parking lot to the foot of the Butte these days. I dream of the day (some distant, foggy day far in the future) when I might be able to do these things again.

Yes...I dream of mopping and hiking...two things I loathe, to be truthful, but I'd like to have the OPTION to do those things.

So, yesterday was a bit of a shock to me. I spent almost the entire day being productive. What changed, you ask? Well, my back has been hurting non-stop for days. It didn't matter if I was sitting, standing, bending, scrubbing...it just HURT. So I thought, well, if it's going to hurt no matter what I do, I may as well just suck it up and get moving. I felt like I had been run over by a tank by the time I fell into bed last night, but I was proud of myself in a way that I haven't been in over a year. This list may look puny to those of you who lead less sedentary lives, but allow me my pride...here's what I got done yesterday:

I rode on my "new" exercise bike...granted it was only a few minutes, but a few minutes is better than zero minutes.

I cleaned the entire kitchen, aside from the floor. It needed it, too. The sink is empty of the 4 days of dishes that had built up, the faucet and porcelain have been shined, counters cleaned (except a few spots), stove scrubbed. I cleaned and cured all my frying pans, AND my teapot (can anyone tell me how on Earth that thing gets so filthy every week? It's covered in grime an inch thick, and all I use it for is water! I think I need to store it on the other side of the kitchen...it picks up too much grease from cooking).

Oh yeah, and I actually cleaned the kitchen three times. Once for the big mess, and twice more after cooking and making a mess. It had better stay clean, I tell ya! (Had a little chat with hubs, and myself, to say that dishes are to be washed and promptly put in the dishwasher, not built up over days, and if you're going to cook for yourself, you're going to wash up your own dishes and clean up after yourself...I'm worse at this than he is, so I gave myself a much sterner talking to...heehee.)

I did all the laundry, which is huge. In the last few weeks, I've been getting most of the laundry done on Wednesday...to the point where I just have one last load in the dryer, and I just have to fold that and put everything away...and then I peter out. Well, last night, I didn't peter out (or, more accurately, I was already petered out by the time I woke up yesterday, so I just sucked it up and did it anyway). I even washed my blankets, since they were getting too heavy and warm. Hopefully that wasn't a mistake, since the weather is now cooled off again.

I cleaned the bathroom...counter, litter box, toilet (easy peasy, since I do the "swish" part of Flylady's swish and swipe at least every other day, so it wasn't that dirty to begin with), and the floor.

Organized cupboards, fridge, freezer, and a bunch of other stuff

Made bread

Made fudge

Wrote two blog posts...one about previously mentioned fudge, and one about cleaning supplies (which had to be edited about 15 times because I kept messing up...jeez).

Seems like there's more, but if I think of anything, I'll come back and add. I think that's enough bragging for now anyway. ;-)

Know what the best part is, though? That doesn't leave me a lot to do this weekend. Might have to find something fun to do with my spare time...

Menu Planning Again

Oh, this saving money thing completely rocks. In case anyone's wondering, I don't make my menus on a set schedule. Generally, I wait until payday, after paying bills (so that I know if my budget is off), and then whenever I have time. Well, I had the time today. (I only worked 1 hour today, and I worked from home). This time, I'm going to show you my menu and my shopping list. I only planned 28 meals this time because I ran out of ideas. But it won't matter, we'll have plenty. Also, we were out of town quite a bit and Jason is now working nights, so a lot of the food I planned for last month never got cooked. About half the menu is being carried over from last month as a result. Without further ado:

KABOB'S
Stew meat (have)
Mushrooms
Peppers
Onions (have)
Tomato

CHICKEN ALFREDO
Sauce Mix (I looked up a recipe for making my own sauce mix)
Pasta (have plenty, but I'm buying more with double coupons at Albertson's today, making them free)
Chicken (have)
Veggies (I just put random veggies with this meal, whatever sounds good...we have some frozen veggies from when the Steam Fresh veggies were on sale, and I got them for 50 cents each)

ALFREDO SAUCE MIX PACKETS
Dry milk (have)
Parmesan
Dried onion (have)
Garlic powder (have)
Salt (have)
White pepper

SPAGHETTI
Pasta (have)
Sauce mix packet (have)
Tomato Paste (have one but will need 3 more)
Meatballs (we have some of these, and might be able to get more free...if I can't get them free, we'll do without)
Veggies (have)

CHICKEN CURRY
Chicken (have)
Curry (have)
Coconut milk (have one can, need one more)
Rice noodles (have)
Spring rolls (we like a certain kind of veggie spring rolls...we have 2 boxes, but will need more)
Oriental veggies (we have enough for one meal, but we'll need more)
Soy sauce (have)

ENCHILADAS (have a meal kit)
Beans (have, will make a big pot of refried beans)
Cheese
Sour cream (have)
Veggies (have)

CHICKEN STRIPS AND FRIES
Chicken (have)
Potatoes
Bread crumbs (have)
Condiments (have)

CHILI AND CORNBREAD
Kidney beans (have)
Dried veggies (have WAY too much)
Chili Seasoning (if we don't have a packet, we have the spices)
Onion (have)
Diced tomatoes (have)
Cornmeal (have)

RAVIOLI
Frozen pasta (have)
Spaghetti or Alfredo sauce (whatever I'm in the mood for, and we have on hand...we have plenty of both)

BURGERS
Patties (have veggie burgers)
Buns
Condiments (have)
Lettuce, tomato, onion (have onion)

TUNA CASSEROLE
Pasta (have)
Tuna (have)
Cream mushroom soup (have)
Peas

CORN CHOWDER
Potato soup (have)
Corn (have)
Evaporated milk (have)

SOUP AND SALAD
Tomato soup (have)
Salad (we have some, but we'll need to grab more whenever we want this meal)
Dressing (have some, but will need more)
Crackers

CHOW MEIN
Chow Mein noodles (have)
Rice (have)
Bean sprouts (have)
Soy sauce (have)
Chicken (have)
Veggies
Sauce packet (have)
Spring rolls

MEATLOAF AND POTATOES
Ground turkey (have)
Ketchup (have)
Bread crumbs (have)
Egg (have)
BBQ sauce (have some, might need more)
Onion soup mix (have)

We'll be having multiples of a lot of those, so it adds up to 28 meals total. Here's the grocery list I have so far:

Fresh mushrooms
Bell peppers
Tomatos
Parmesan
White pepper
Cheese
Potatoes
Ranch dressing
Burger buns
Peas
Spring rolls
Oriental veggies
Crackers

That's it. For the whole month. I haven't looked through my master list yet, so I'm sure I'll add a few things, but I'm pretty well stocked up on the regular items. Did you see how much stuff I already have on hand??? Wowza. And that's not even including canned fruits and veggies, snacks, etc. I rearranged the cupboard this afternoon to make more room, and holy cow we have a lot of food. Time to add some shelves!

Cleaning Up The Clutter

I just now realized that I haven't posted since the day before yesterday (beings that it's after midnight, that is). I'm so tired, and should have been in bed hours ago, so I'm going to make this a quickie.

I'm addicted to this blog. Mostly out of envy, I must admit. I was doing so wonderfully with my own clutter a couple years ago...but unfortunately, I've fallen right back into old patterns. *sigh* I'm hopeful that Barb's posts will eventually convince me to get back on that bandwagon.

Enjoy!

Menu Planning

I've mentioned Flylady a few times, I think. I'm sure I'll write a post eventually dedicated only to Flylady stuff, but this one is specifically about one part of my life that has changed as a direct result of becoming a Flybaby. I used to just write a general grocery list of the basics, not worrying about what I was going to make. I figured I had most of the ingredients to make a few good meals, and it usually worked out pretty well. Unfortunately, we'd end up running to the store quite often because we were still missing one or two ingredients. So, starting to plan my meals ahead of time has been awesome.

I actually started doing this after I saw Leanne Ely's Saving Dinner sample menu's, and realizing that would help me tremendously. I have a couple of menu's written up and saved in my documents, but it proved to be too much work to keep making those great big ol' lists over and over again, and I never wanted the same one twice (especially since I'm always experimenting with something, and if I try to add an experimental meal to the list and it turns out disgusting, I have to find something to replace it with...and it's just more trouble than it's worth).

So, I came up with a system half way in between the big, elaborate meal plan and the fly by the seat of my pants (and make a few extra runs to the grocery store in between shopping trips) systems. I'm going to walk you through my little system, just in case it helps. Actually, I'm going to walk you through what I did last time, since it changes a little every time, and I liked the most recent grocery shopping trip so much.

The first thing I did was peek around in the cupboards to see what we already have that could make meals we both like. For example, we have tons of leftover tuna and cream of mushroom soup, along with a few bags of pasta. Viola, quick and easy tuna casserole. We have plenty of kidney beans and some cornmeal. So, chili and cornbread would be a great meal to have. I went through like this, adding the name of each meal until I had 30 meals (but as I mentioned in my earlier post, I usually only do 14 meals).

For each meal, I then write down how much of each ingredient we need. It looks like this:
Most of the meals are pretty self explanatory (for instance, we bought those taco meal kits that have everything in them except meat and produce, so I didn't break those out into ingredients). I usually only write down the ones where I'm changing the menu to conserve (like, corn chowder usually uses 2 cans of cream of potato soup and 2 cans of evaporated milk, but I figured we could cut it in half and have sandwiches with it this time). I wouldn't do this if I were the only one cooking, but if Jason decides to cook (like he did tonight...well, I kinda decided for him, but he could have said no), he needs to know what ingredients I planned for him to use. Sometimes he'll grab twice as much of an ingredient than he needs, and we don't have enough for another meal.

Anyway, I don't necessarily write down every ingredient for every meal, but I at least mentally make this list for each meal. While I'm doing this, I make my grocery list (I'd been working on it the whole time, actually, but this is the step where I double and triple check that I have everything on the list). Then I check my master grocery list (another flylady suggestion), and I'm done.

Before dinner that night, I make sure the list of ingredients, and a complete list of all the meals I have planned for that [month, bi-week, or week] are on the fridge. I'm pretty new still to the coupon thing, but so far, this is the part where I grab coupons, and I'll add any good coupons to my grocery list, and grab any coupons I think might come in handy while I'm out. Then I'm off to the store!